


Doctoring the Sick

by betawho



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-27
Updated: 2014-11-27
Packaged: 2018-02-27 04:27:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2679119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betawho/pseuds/betawho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>River had always been overprotective of the Doctor. What does she do when <i>he</i> gets sick?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Doctoring the Sick

She stroked his face, his beautiful, long, bony face. His baby boy lips were twisted in a grimace, his beautiful, delicate eyebrows were filled with sweat. His skin temperature was dropping fast.

She never would have let him do it, but he'd knocked her out. He was right, she couldn't have done it, she didn't have the immune system, she was still mostly human. 

As soon as he was back on his feet, hale and healthy, she was going to flatten him. 

She brushed aside his sweaty quiff, he was already so cold the wet hair stuck to his forehead briefly, frosted over. Her golden tan fingers stood out in contrast to his pale, pink, almost blueish skin. 

"He's going to be all right," Rory said, walking up beside her in the alien infirmary. They'd discovered the alien colonial base already being ravaged by the virus. Regular humans couldn't get it, but the aliens, while humanoid, had more in common with Gallifreyan biology than Terran. 

She turned and glared at her father, her left hand already starting to sting with frostbite where she held the Doctor's wrist. 

He held up both hands in surrender, looking more like a farmboy than a medical man. "I wouldn't let him do it until I had all the facts. Amy sat on him, while the Tardis remotely downloaded all the information on the virus and the immunity into me." He shuddered. "I am _never_ using a cranial download again."

"Rory," she said dangerously, her catlike eyes boring holes in him. The Doctor was her responsibility. He was _hers_ to protect. 

"It's okay, Mels," Rory said, slipping into old habits, especially in the face of that fierce expression. He knew that look. Those eyes. 

"It's like getting the measles," he said, trying to placate her. 

"Adults die from the measles," she pointed out, her hand tightening on the Doctor's wrist, fingers planted over his veins, counting each slowing pulsebeat, even as frost crackled over the back of her hand, growing from him to her. 

She couldn't feel his flesh any more, her hand was too numb, but she could feel the flow of energy, his energy, her energy, mingled in him from their first kiss. 

"It's not that bad, Time Lords are resistant. They've got a heck of an immune system. And this is a virus they know. He'll get sick for a day or so, go into a healing coma, produce antibodies and kick the virus out. Then we can harvest the antibodies to cure everyone else." 

He waved behind them, where a temporary clear plastic wall separated them from the rest of the medical wards. Row after row of hospital cots, filled with colonists of all ages, genders, and creeds. The children were holding up the best. But the children here pupated to adult, their immature antibodies were no help to the grown ups. 

She could see Amy moving among the sick, crouching down to talk to a group of youngsters who were playing some listless game that had them gathered in a circle, her gestures showing she was asking them to explain the game to her. 

The adults in the nearest beds smiled and grimaced as their lips split and bled, their pale and dehydrated features graying with exhaustion and the draining effects of the virus. 

River clenched her jaw. Yes, they had to help these people, but not this way. Not risking _him_. It's not like they didn't have petri dishes, and cell cultures, and the Tardis infirmary. Although, she grimaced mentally, the Tardis was currently buried in a collapsed tunnel under the new colonial subterranean living quarters. 

Rory reached behind her and picked up something off the medical trays beside the bed. He cracked it, and rubbed it between his hands, then tucked the chemical hot pad over her freezing fingers. 

He didn't say anything, didn't ask her to let go. She looked at him. He smiled at her. 

No, he'd never ask her to let go.

—

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